12 Questions with Brian Scott

Our series of weekly NASCAR driver interviews continues with Brian Scott, who is in his rookie Sprint Cup season running for Richard Petty Motorsports in the No. 44 car.

Q: What is an errand or chore in your daily life people might be surprised to learn you do yourself?

A: I do a lot of repair work around the house. For instance, I just had to put a new closet light fixture into my wife's closet. I just switched out all the electrical outlets and light switches in our kitchen; they were an almond color and we got a new white subway tile backsplash, and the little bit of peach hue in all of those outlets looked terrible. So I switched those out.

Can’t you get an electrician or someone to do that for you?

I could, but I’m not very patient. I go, “Maybe I’ll just see how hard of a job it is” and I just start doing it. I do some DIYs — like I lined my driveway with a bunch of brick that was laying in the lot next door. Nobody’s built on the lot, so I stole it. (Laughs) I put a bunch of brick down to keep the mulch from washing out into our driveway. That took way longer than what I thought.

Does your wife Whitney approve of your handiwork on these projects?

Well that’s the problem. Because I’ve done a couple things and haven’t killed or electrocuted myself, she thinks I’m like this DIY handyman that can do anything. So now instead of jobs where we should probably find somebody (to hire), she just tells me to do them and calls out my manhood until I do it. It’s tough.

Q: If you could do any race over again, which race would you choose?

A: There are two. One would be Indianapolis (in a 2013 Xfinity Series race) when I finished second and was leading with six laps to go. I feel like I could do a couple things differently. Kyle (Busch) was really fast, but I would have liked to have tried to see if I could keep him behind me.

Another one was Homestead in the Truck in 2008. I was leading on the restart and I did something dumb going into Turn 1 and Todd Bodine passed me and won the race. That would have been my first Truck win; instead it was Dover in the spring of the following year.

Q: The longest race of the year is 600 miles. How long of a race could you physically handle without a driver change?

A: You know, the 600 is the longest mileage race we do, but actually talking to my teammate Aric (Almirola) and some of the guys, the general consensus among drivers is the Southern 500 at Darlington feels longer. I think last year it was something silly long (four hours and 28 minutes) and they said it was just brutal. Anything more than 500 miles at Darlington or 700 at Charlotte would be about all you could do.

Q: Let’s say president of NASCAR was an elected position voted on by the drivers — and you decided to run. What would one of your campaign promises be?

A: My promise would be to make the Sprint Cup Series cars drive like the drivers want them. I would not have any restrictions on engine horsepower and I would continue to do things that got the cars to slide around a little bit more.

Even though we don’t feel we’ve achieved it perfectly with this lower downforce package, drivers like having a little bit more separation. They like having the ability if they have a decent car or if they take care of their tires to pass other cars. That would be my promise: I would do everything I could in the rulebook to create driver-friendly cars, which is low downforce and a lot of horsepower that you have to manage and are fun to race.

Q: At the start of this year, exactly 2,900 drivers had ever raced in the Sprint Cup Series. Where do you rank among those 2,900?

A: I don’t think where you stack up is a fair assessment until you retire. Currently, I race against 39 other drivers on a regular basis and I’m comparing myself to those guys on a weekly basis. Some racetracks I feel like I stack up better than others, but when you look at the history of Sprint Cup drivers, I don’t really think you can judge yourself until you’re at the end of your career.

Q: What do you think your reputation is — and is that reputation accurate?

A: I think in my reputation started out as being fast but wrecking. And maybe respect-wise with some of my fellow competitors wasn’t what I wanted.

But if only judged in the last two or three years, I’d say my reputation is I’m a clean racer, I don’t make many mistakes, I give room and in general I adhere to the drivers’ code of not racing hard early in the race and making it to the end of these races a lot more than I did when I first started.

That sounds like something you pride yourself on doing.

Well, it’s something I’ve had to work hard on. You see a lot of rookies and young drivers do this: You get in the sport and you want to work and fight for respect, but you do it in the wrong way. You feel like, “OK, even when I’m a lap down and the leader comes by, I’m going to race him hard and show him and drive it hard” and you just race the crap out of him.

But it actually ends up doing the exact opposite of what you think. Instead of having them respect you or see that you’re driving a car that’s not handling really well, they end up just hating you for it. They hate having to deal with lapped-down cars or cars that don’t realize they’re fighting a losing battle. When you realize this car just ran you down from half a straightaway back, you have to understand this car is going to pass you. And when you make them work too hard for it or hold them up too long, they’re just not going to like you. They’re not going to enjoy racing around you. And they’re going to do the same thing to you when you turn around and you have a fast car. It just becomes a vicious cycle you just hate and is no fun.

Q: A famous chef wants you to invest in the new restaurant he’s opening, but he wants you to pick the cuisine. What type of food would your restaurant serve?

A: So there’s a restaurant in Davidson, N.C., that I love. It’s called Kindred. It’s not famous, but it’s starting to win a lot of awards. Joe and Katy Kindred are the owners, and if I was ever going to invest in a restaurant, I would invest with them to get on board with them because I like everything they’re doing.

Their cuisine is very farm to table, and I think that’s a lot of the rage right now. A lot of people are trying to live healthier lifestyles and are going organic and liking local produce and proteins. This restaurant does an amazing job with really interesting things you don’t try on a regular basis, and I’m a foodie, so I like trying interesting things. I’m not just like, “I want a cheeseburger everywhere I go.”

A: Getting married. No, I’m kidding (laughs). I’ve done a lot of dumb things in my life, and dumb things usually correlate with daring things. As you get older, you realize you took a lot of risks, but they were fun experiences to look back on. I’d have a hard time just picking one. (Thinks for awhile)

You know, I joke about it, but in all honesty deciding to get married and have kids is daring. I come from a family that didn’t have successful marriages, and it was something that was like a dark cloud over my head. To choose to do it anyway and to give it the best effort, I thought that was pretty daring.

Q: In a move to generate more excitement, NASCAR decides in an upcoming race they’re going to require every driver to have a passenger in the car. You get to pick the passenger. Who do you choose?

A: From a purely competitive standpoint, I’d pick the lightest person I could think of. I would want my 5-year-old daughter (Brielle) who weighs about 30 pounds or something.

Q: How often do you talk inside the car without hitting the radio button?

A: I’d say 90% of the time. I probably say more things without hitting the button than I do while actually hitting it. It’s funny, I’ve listened back on some of my radio communications throughout the course of a race, and I’m like, “Man, I don’t say anything.” But I’m just not always keying the radio.

So we need to have someone get you mic’d up like NFL Films does.

Oh, it’d be bad. It probably wouldn’t be a very good representation of the type of person I think I am. (Laughs)

Q: Who will win the Sprint Cup five years from now, in 2021? You’re 1-for-1 on this question, because when I asked you in 2010 you said Kyle Busch would win the Cup in 2015 and it would be his first title.

A: Now the pressure is on. I have a reputation to uphold. I’d like to think that in five years, I’d at least be making the Chase, but I’m not going to say myself, because that’s a jinx.

Let me look out the window here at some of the car numbers. (Walks to his hauler door and peers into the garage, then thinks for a few moments.)

Kyle Larson. And it’ll be his first one.

Q: I’ve been asking each driver to give me a question for the next interview. And actually, the last interview was with Larson. I guess your sons are around the same age and he wanted to know: “What are you feeding your kid to make him so huge?"

A: Steroids. (Laughs) He’s just a good eater. Honestly, he eats whatever we give him. Whatever we’re having for dinner, he eats. He doesn’t have an aversion to green foods like broccoli or things like that. He sticks anything in his mouth and tries it. A lot of times he halfway eats something and then spits it up even if he likes it. I don’t know why he does that.

And genetically, he’s coming from a bigger family than the Larson genes. The Scotts, we’re corn-fed and potatoed. And you know, my wife is tall — she’s 5-foot-8 or 5-foot-9, something like that. She’s not a short girl. So he’s just got the big build and he likes eating like his dad.

And do you have a question for the next interview? I don’t know who it will be with yet.

You should let me pick who you interview next.

It doesn’t really work like that. Some drivers don’t want to do them or are too busy, so there’s no guarantee.

Well, I’d like you to talk to Brian Vickers if you can.

Why’s that?

I think it would be a really interesting interview. I like Vickers a lot. I’d like to see him back in this garage full-time. My question for Vickers would be: How do you stay fresh and current and fluent with these cars? How does he get into these cars and hop in and be pretty quick right off the bat?